Chapter 48. My Brother's Keeper


Eighteen Minutes Later, 4. January 2415 AD, Eden Prime, HSASV Normandy, Medbay

"You're saying the beacon did this?" the medical officer of the frigate, Doctor Chakwas, asked as she stood next to the unconscious N7, reading through the various scanner results on a datapad, the confusion written on her face already betraying that nothing in the sterile white medbay had been able to offer answers as to what was wrong with the commander.

"Yes," Anderson replied with a nod as he looked at the doctor, "and then it blew up," he added, aware just how bad that would look in the report, truth or not.

"And you're sure that you're feeling alright, Lieutenant Alenko?" the doctor inquired while turning towards the other marine who had come into contact with the beacon prior to its sudden destruction.

"Yes, Ma'am," the biotic nodded, causing the doctor to bring up her omni-tool again.

"For all intents and purposes, Commander Shepard is fine," she muttered.

"But?" the Spectre asked. He had been here before, with medical officers there was always a 'but', especially if they kept checking their readings.

"None of this makes sense," Chakwas began while walking over to Shepard, a series of faint, orange strings originating from her omni-tool brushing over the commander. "Medically speaking, the commander's comatouse but at the same time, neural scans suggests the complete opposite. She might be unresponsive but her brain is working in overdrive," the doctor sighed, once more eyeing Lieutenant Alenko, "and no matter what I do, I can't figure out why," it didn't take an expert to tell that the doctor was both worried and frustrated about this. "Lieutenant, you are certain that you're not feeling any worrying symptoms?"

"Nothing, Ma'am" the man said before putting his face into his hands. "This is all my fault, I never should've gotten near that beacon."

"Nonsense, Lieutenant," the medical officer protested. "You couldn't have known that this would happen," she offered. Personally, Anderson wasn't entirely sure if he could agree with that notion. "Captain, if you're done here, I'd ask you to take your leave for now," Chakwas spoke as she turned back around to face him. "I need to focus on my patients and frankly, you're standing in my way," turning his head around and looking at the cabinet he was standing in front of, the Spectre took a step towards the door, opening up the way with an apologetic smile. "I'll notify you once Shepard wakes up."

Nodding his understanding, Anderson went for the door, hearing a set of steps behind him.

"Lieutenant Alenko, where do you think you're going?" the doctor asked in a scolding tone as Anderson decided to put as much space between him and the argument about to happen in the medbay. He had also been here before. "Patients specifically implies that there are two of you. Until I run more tests and know what's going on here, you're confi-"

Breathing a sigh of relief as the door shut behind him, muffling the argument, he reached for the omni-tool he had taken of the dead turian and began making his way towards the captain's quarters that had been assigned to him upon being temporarily put in charge of the frigate. As he passed through the mess hall and entered the elevator, he eyed the small device in his hand. If the Blackwatch officer had followed protocol, which he most certainly had given that he was a turian, the omni-tool should've recorded the moments, or rather the audio feed, leading up to his death. Once he got around the encryption of the device, he'd be able to everything between Xentax's last transmission, his death and their own arrival on site. Walking out as the doors of the elevator opened, he quickly entered his room, clutching the device in his hand a little tighter as he allowed the facade he had maintained up to now to drop.

The ship that had attacked Eden Prime had been a Leviathan and the strange blue creatures Shepard had tried to warn him about had been husks. The geth who had carried out the attack had been the same geth that he and Saren had encountered before and the beacon they had tried and likely succeeded in accessing had been the same one Cerberus and HSAIS had hoped would give them answers. All in all, everything he had seen today told him what he had been fearing from the very moment he had been told about it.

The Harbinger was making his move on the galaxy and the geth had picked his side.

Anderson sighed as he dropped down into one of the chairs.

Strangely enough, the prospect of a galactic cataclysm wasn't the only thing weighing on his mind right now.

While he had never received any real training on the matter, his years as a Spectre had given him enough experience to already have some idea as to what had happened down there. Even though the exact circumstances of their deaths were unknown, there was no doubt in his mind that the Blackwatch team hadn't been killed by geth. Sure, the number of destroyed combat platforms made it incredibly easy to assume that all of them had died in an heroic last defense of the beacon but the wounds he had seen on them told a different story, a story he had decided to keep to himself for now. As the Spectre connected his own omni-tool to the one he had managed to retrieve, beginning the process of accessing the data, he also recalled his own impression of the scene in an attempt to either confirm or, hopefully but far less likely, deny the picture that was shaping up in the back of his mind.

Out of the four turians only one had looked like he had put up a fight. The others, especially Xentax who had been shot in the back of his head, seemed to have been killed rather sudden and, more importantly, by something they hadn't seen coming. As Anderson tried to come up with a scenario in which a Blackwatch team, which had previously dealt with what could be described as a small army of geth, could be killed fast enough for only one of them to be able to fight back, he decided that he needed to understand just who had died first before going any further. He knew for a fact that they had been alive up until shortly before he and Shepard's team had arrived at the spaceport, the last transmission of Xentax predating their own arrival by only a few minutes. He also knew for a fact that at least two of the Blackwatch operatives had been caught out in the open, the image of their bodies lying in the middle of the platform far away from any cover, still present in Anderson's mind. Going from there, a realisation struck the former N7, causing him to check his own recordings of the mission, quickly fast forwarding his helmet camera footage to the point where he had first reached the beacon and pausing the moment he himself had come to a halt, the frozen image he was now looking at send a chilly sensation down his spine.

Not only had Xentax been lying in front of the two other operatives when he had first arrived, he, unlike the two turians killed behind him, had also been shot from the back, meaning that there had either been more than one attacker, or that whoever had shot them had stood in between the team. As a small puddle of blue, turian blood he couldn't immediately match to one of the corpses caught Anderson's attention, the orange light reflecting off of it giving it a strange coloration, he remembered something else that had initially been overshadowed by the sudden activation of the beacon. Fast forwarding again until he saw himself approach the turian body leaning against one of the crates, his helmet and his head mostly destroyed by a powerful gunshot, his eyes widened upon realising what the soldier had been holding onto moments before his death.

He recognized the knife immediately. Not only had he seen it on multiple occasions, he had also been forced to use it during one of their much closer calls. But it wasn't the curved Blackwatch blade itself that put the finishing touches to his earlier suspicion, no, it was the blue blood in which it was coated. In a mere instant, this one detail explained almost everything from their sudden demise and their apparent lack of caution in the middle of a combat zone to the fact that only one of them had managed to fight back.

They had been betrayed by one of their own.

A fifth turian, somebody likely belonging to their own unit, had killed them.

As he rubbed his neck, Anderson recalled how all of this had started, initially failling to remember the name of the Blackwatch operative who's 'treason', an event that had unfolded much like this one seemed to do right now, had later turned out to be the product of what Saren, his brother and their allies were calling 'indoctrination.'

What had been his nam-

Haliat.

Captain Elanos Haliat.

Bringing up his omni-tool, briefly eyeing the progress of his attempt to access Xentax's audio recording, Anderson searched through the files Saren had given to him last year. As he read over the report, it became clear that the circumstances under which Haliat had murdered his own team had been hauntingly similar. If there was another Blackwatch operative like Haliat, they had to get ahead of this. Accessing his contacts and quickly dismissing the Council's demand to know what had gone wrong, he'd get to them in a moment, the human Spectre sent his findings to one of the few people he trusted to take the necessary actions from here on out. Even if they hadn't spoken for some time, the unanswered messages he was looking at while waiting for his most recent one to be sent reminding him of that fact, Anderson was certain that this development would be more than enough to pull him away from whatever it was that had caused him to drop off the radar these last few months.

After all, Saren knew exactly what was at stake here.

When he had gotten conformation that the message had been sent and received, Anderson once more checked on the progress of Xentax's omni-tool. Sighing as he got his answer, it would be another hour or so before he'd be able to access what he was looking for, he decided to do another thing he wasn't looking forward to.

Explain the Council just how his mission had gone so far off the rails.


Five Hours Later, Early 2156 CE, Aephus, Turian Naval Rally Point

They weren't ready.

Not by a long shot.

That was the single thought echoing through Desolas' mind as he marched through the halls of the military base.

Exactly three hundred and fifteen minutes ago, a geth strike force, led by a ship matching the one his brother had encountered a couple of months ago down to the last detail, had attacked Eden Prime, clashing with both the local human forces and the turian troops currently training with them. While casualties in space had been surprisingly light, a combination of the quick thinking of the naval officers and the apparent disinterest of the Leviathan and its captain to assist the geth fleet leading to a rather even engagement, the moment of surprise had caused heavy casualties on the ground. Thanks to the timing of the raid, a lot of the soldiers had been caught in the open with nothing but maneuver ammunition and their wits, effectively being left defenseless during the critical initial stage of the attack.

Officialy, the motives of the attack were unknown and the ship, which had been caught on camera by far too many people already, was being considered a new kind of geth dreadnought. Inofficialy, the geth had tried and, as far as early evidence suggested, succeeded in accessing the beacon the HSA had found in the recently unearthed subterranean prothean complex on Eden Prime before fleeing the system alongside the Leviathan.

"They're already expecting you, General Arterius," a naval captain, the small pin at the collar of his uniform revealing him to be part of TNI, the Turian Naval Intelligence, spoke as Desolas marched past him and into the briefing room, his black and golden armor immediately setting him apart from most other attendants. Unlike most of them, he had been deep in Aephus's mountains when the call had reached him and given it's urgency, there had been little time for him to get changed.

"We don't have to defeat them, we just have to contain them," he heard as he entered the room, his eyes briefly darting to the turian currently speaking and identifying him as Admiral Quentius, one of the navy's highest ranking officers and, alongside Desolas, one of the few non-primarchs who had been summoned to this unscheduled meeting. " I say we destroy the relays connecting us to geth space and cut them off from the rest of the galaxy. The plans already exist," he went on as he smashed his fist down into his open palm. "The only thing left to do is set them in motion."

The admiral was right, after the fall of Rannoch at the hands of the geth, plans to destroy the mass relays leading from the Perseus Veil to Council space had been drawn up. In theory, it was a rather simple idea. By causing a high velocity collision with an asteroid, a maneuver indirectly inspired by how the krogan had destroyed several turian colonies in the opening weeks of their war with the Hierarchy, his people had hoped to irreparably damage the relays and cut off the geth from the rest of the galaxy.

"How are we to neutralize the threat, if we remove our ability to attack it?" another pointed out.

"I agree," it echoed from one of the holograms. "We have ignored this problem for far too long. It's time that we put an end to it once and for all," yet another replied when the one before him was done talking.

"With all due respect, Primarch," Quentius spoke up again. "As of right now, we do not possess the means to achieve a guaranteed victory over the geth," he paused, aware of the implications his statement had. While not public knowledge to the average citizen of the Hierarchy, everyone in this room, be they projections or physically present, knew that TNI regarded the geth's military strength as the only threat in the galaxy that the turian military could perhaps meet its conventional match in. "For the moment, our most viable option is to remove their ability to attack us, by whatever means necessary. In the best case scenario, this solves the problem permanently, in the worst case scenario, it still gives us time to come up with a permanent solution," the admiral finished, nodding his grey head at Desolas as the latter took his seat. If the Blackwatch commander had to take a guess, the turian was glad to see a face that didn't belong to a primarch.

"Admiral, if we do that, we'd also do more than take away our ability to take the fight to them," another turian, this one the Primarch of a colony who's markings Desolas didn't immediately recognize, spoke up. "Are you aware of the kind of backlash the preemptive destruction of even one relay would cause? Unless we have undeniable proof that the geth seek to invade Council Spa-"

"That will be enough, Primarch Helat," the only living turian who could get away with interrupting a member of the highest tier of turian citizenship spoke calmly, the echo that accompanied his voice a product of the Hall of Primarchs he was currently seated in. As Galus Fedorian, the Primarch of Palaven and therefore highest authority of the Turian Hierarchy, turned his holographic head towards Desolas, the general found himself sitting a little straighter, if such a thing was even possible. "Primarchs, admirals, generals," Fedorian began as Desolas prepared himself for the spotlight he was about to receive. "Everything General Arterius is about to tell you has been deemed highly sensitive information. Carrying it out of this room without permission will be considered high treason to both the Hierarchy and the turian people," the former admiral paused for a moment. "While many of you have already been briefed on the basic details of what you're about to hear, I'm afraid that the situation has developed into a far more worrying one," the Primarch turned his head. "General Arterius, when you're ready."

"Of course, Sir," he said as he got up from the seat he had only just taken, a wave of his omni-tool allowing him to take over the biggest of the holographic projectors that had hastily been set up to allow for this meeting to happen in the first place.

"Two months ago, a field team deployed near the Perseus Veil managed to capture this image," he began as the blurry depiction of the Leviathan ship his brother had encountered during his pursuit of the Shadow Broker's first clue, the one that hadn't turned into an ambush, appeared in the center of the room for all to see.

"What you're looking at, is the same alien dreadnought," Desolas said before he waved his through the air, bringing up a much clearer and much closer picture of the dark-purple colossus which had been taken by a now deceased turian soldier in the moments leading up to his death, "that led the attack on Eden Prime." After another gesture, the archived image of the Leviathan of Dis, the namesake of this ship, appeared next to it.

"While we don't know it's current whereabouts, the similarities between this ship and the wreckage found on Jartar make it a certainty that its a part of the Harbinger's forces," at the mention of that name, Desolas saw only a few of the faces shift into something vaguely resembling worry. While this was new information, none of the turians in this room had gotten into their position by losing their composure. "Considering the threat its creator possess, it is my suggestion that we immediately begin preparations."

"Primarch Fedorian, may I make an inquiry?" the Primarch of Aephus herself was the first to speak up from a few seats to Desolas' left.

"You may," Fedorian replied a moment later.

"What kind of preparations do you suggest, General Arterius?"

"Full mobilization, Ma'am," he nodded. "We need to ready the Hierarchy for a war on the scale of the Krogan Rebellions and we need to do it right now."

"General, correct me if I'm mistaking but," he didn't like where this was going, "it was my impression that one of your largest points of concern was that your task force never learned what exactly it is that we should prepare for," the dark-plated turian pointed out as her features shifted into a skeptic expression. "Has this changed recently?"

"No, Ma'am."

"So your assessment of the situation has changed? Does it no longer warrant caution?"

"On the contrary. My assessment of the situation remains exactly the same," Desolas said, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "But this attack forces our hand. There is no more time for caution," he finished, meeting the eye of the dark-plated turian.

"If caution falls, General, defeat follows," the turian replied as she folded her hands, the shifting of her mandibles clarifying her challenge. "I don't think I have to remind you of that?"

"And I don't think I have to remind you that sayings rarely apply to the actual battlefield," he countered, "Ma'am."

"What are you trying to suggest, General?" Desolas was well aware that he was only really getting away with what he was currently doing due to the unique standing Blackwatch held within the Hierarchy. Usually, a 'mere' general would never dare to speak to a turian primarch like this but with his own legion, things had always been different. Whether it was their nearly flawless history or the sheer usefulness they offered to the Hierarchy, Blackwatch had always been allowed more freedom than their regular brethren.

"In my experience," he took care to stress the last word, "quotes from field manuals tend to clash with reality."

"General Arte-"

"Enough of this, Primarch Olarion," Fedorian's hologram muttered in a surprisingly displeased tone, instantly silencing the turian. "You know that the general's concerns are more than warranted," in spite of the apparent victory, Desolas kept himself from smirking. He had made his point, being smug about it would serve no purpose. "The intelligence Blackwatch and TNI collected," he wasn't entirely sure why the turian refrained from mentioning the role their human and salarian counterparts had played but he knew better than to correct somebody speaking out in his favour, "suggest that this is the beginning of a threat of unparalleled scale. Considering our responsibility to the galaxy, a full mobilization of our military will become a necessity," there was a pause as the Primarch turned his head to Desolas, his look already giving away that there was a 'but' in there,"as soon as," there it was, "we understand the motives behind the attack on Eden Prime and its role within our enemy's strategy."

Desolas got it, he really did. It was after all the very same logic that had driven his actions ever since Haliat had gone rogue. There was no point in digging in when your enemy possessed siege artillery and there was no point in building roadblocks and barricades if he could fly over them. It was simple military logic. Reconnaissance had to be conducted before preparations could be made.

But just because he got it, didn't mean that he had to like it.

Mobilizing every last one of the tens of billions of active duty and reserve personal within the Hierarchy was an enormous effort. It took a massive financial, logistical and bureaucratic effort to do so and more importantly it took time, a lot of time.

Time they didn't have.

"With all due respect, Sir," he was about to voice this when Fedorian shook his head.

"General Arterius, I share your concern and as we're speaking, your legion's marching orders have already been sent," sure enough his omni-tool vibrated at that moment, "but right now the only thing a full mobilization would succeed in, is draining our supplies and giving our enemy time to study our defenses while we await his attack," the military educated part of Desolas mind agreed with that notion but the more personal, far more worried one barely kept itself from insisting that they still had to do it.

"Eden Prime was a tragic attack and a worrying development, but it wasn't an all-out invasion of Council Space. It was a raid on a prothean beacon with an as of yet unknown goal," the Primarch began again, making his point and Desolas' orders clear before even saying them out loud. "And I'm afraid that we'll only be able to act, once Blackwatch finds out what that goal was and whether or not the geth will continue to act as the Harbinger's auxiliaries," Fedorian's holographic set of eyes, which he knew from personal encounters to be a dark shade of yellow, met Desolas' own blue ones. "Do you understand me, General?" he asked in a stern tone.

"Yes, Sir."

"Good," another pause gave Fedorian's features time to soften. "While I won't call for a full mobilization of the Hierarchy just yet, I will order a partial mobilization of our naval forces. Furthermore I order the legions of the clusters Taetrus, Aephus, Digeris, Armiger and Oma Ker to ready themselves for immediate deployment."

In spite of being shot down, Desolas felt a certain degree of success. The legions of those worlds were amongst the Hierarchy's most prestigious and, more importantly, most numerous combat units stationed outside of the Trebia System. Growing up, every turian heard stories about how the assault corps of Armiger had led the charge on Tuchanka itself or how the severly outnumbered legions of Digeris had braved one krogan attack after the other in spite of being bombarded by both the enemy dreadnoughts themselves and the turian navy firing at the hostile fleet between themselves and Digeris. "Additionally, I want all major clusters to prepare for similar actions in preparation for an attack of either the Harbinger, the geth or both," as Fedorian's voice flanged through the briefing room, Desolas noted that his omni-tool vibrated again, indicating that yet another message had arrived. "If they come looking for a fight, the Hierarchy will give it to them and if they set their eyes on those that can't defend themselves in the hope of avoiding our might, we won't sit by idle. We will make them regret it. For the Hierarchy."

"For the Hierarchy!" every other turian in the room, be they physically present or a hologram, repeated not a moment later.

"Dismissed."

As soon as Fedorian had finished and closed the meeting by cutting of his transmission, the primarchs, admirals and generals sharing the room with him that began to type away on their terminals and omni-tools, relaying his orders even before the lights turned on. Deciding to forward his own orders to Melion so that the XO could make the necessary preparations, Desolas paused as he read the other message he had been sent during the meeting, curious just what Agent David Anderson would want from him.

'We need to talk, General. It's about your brother.'


Five Minutes Earlier, 4. January 2415 AD, HSASV Normandy

It's a good thing you came when you did," the flanging voice of the now dead Blackwatch captain echoed through the room. "It's gonna be just like old times."

"Yes," no matter how often he had replayed the minutes between him losing contact with the turians and him finding their bodies, this was the part that he still struggled to make sense of. "Just like old times."

"Spirit, is that a ship?"

"Alright get rea-"

As the three gunshots he had already heard several times before sounded off again, the Spectre clenched his jaw, forcing his mind to stay focused in an attempt to pick up something new, something other than the ugly reality he was faced with.

"Spirits, what are you doing, Arterius?"

Incidentally, that was also the question Anderson was asking himself.

Why?

Why would Saren do any of this?

He sighed and paused the recording.

He knew exactly why.

Just like in Haliat's case, the 'indoctrination' effect that had been observed during the encounters with the artifact would explain all of Saren's actions. Trying to seize the beacon, turning on the Blackwatch team, likely leading the attack itself, all of it would make sense if his friend had fallen victim to the same phenomenon.

However it wasn't the 'why' that had Anderson's mind racing, at least not for now. It was the 'where', the 'when' and, most importantly, the 'is it reversible' that managed to keep the Spectre from thinking about the consequences of his discovery, which at the moment, only he and, once he read the message, Saren's brother, knew of.

The first and most likely option that he had considered after his second time through the recording to fill the first two blanks had been the Budapest's destruction. Although he had initially dismissed it because he knew that the HSA had searched every corner of Inversio system and found nothing but debris supporting Saren's narrative of the event that had predated his dropping of the radar, the realisation that the ship he had seen on Eden Prime was likely just as capable of producing the effect as the artifacts were had rapidly filled the gaps.

But it weren't these two questions that he was particularly concerned with.

It was the question as to what he could do to free Saren of the indoctrination.

Sighing again, he decided to stop lying to himself.

It wasn't a question of 'what', it was a question of 'if.'

After he had recognized the cause, Anderson had immediately gone over every related piece of information that the group around Saren's brother had collected in regards to the subject in the hope of finding something he could use to free Saren and by extension keep him from being branded a rogue Spectre, which would be the first step the Council would take once they heard about his role in the attack on Eden Prime, and being hunted down by their peers of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch.

Much to his despair, the search had turned up empty.

As he saw the light of his room reflect of the bottle the Normandy's captain had gifted to him in 'exchange for keeping my crew safe', he was about to reach for the expensive whiskey when his omni-tool vibrated.

There was only really one person this could be.

Briefly checking if all his securities were in place and if the quarter's intercom was still muted, he had made sure Joker wouldn't listen in on his discovery from the very moment he had heard the familiar flanging of Saren's voice, Anderson sat up in his chair and prepared himself to deliver the news.

"Agent Anderson, you wanted to talk?" the voice of the turian's brother came through somewhat choppy, the fact that the Normandy was currently traveling back to the Citadel, the Council had recalled him for a personal debriefing the moment they had heard about the destruction of the beacon, doing no favours to the connection. Figuring that there was no way to really soften the blow, he didn't even knew the general enough to somehow comfort him beforehand, Anderson simply delivered the news without any sort of warning.

"Your brother led the attack on Eden Prime."

For a few seconds, there was a painful silence.

"What did you just say?" he wasn't entirely sure what reaction he had expected from the general, but the purely stoic, cold and detached tone that carried over even through the bad quality of his transmission, hadn't been among them.

"He killed the Blackwatch team that was supposed to guard the beacon and then he ac-"

"Start from the beginning," the general replied, his voice hauntingly similar to Saren's.

"Alright."

And so the former N7 did, describing every step he had taken on the mission, telling General Arterius about how the geth had murdered their way to the beacon, about how Captain Xentax's team, who had apparently been part of the same training class as Saren, worsening his betrayal of them even more, had held the spaceport while they had fought their way towards it and about how he had looked for the memory cards and omni-tools, mechanisms he only knew about thanks to Saren once telling him about them in case something ever happened to him on a mission. When he was done, the weight of his discovery seemed to hit him worse than it had hit the unprepared general. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Anderson was about to ask what they should do when the turian beat him to the punch, his voice still rather detached.

"And you're sure of this?"

"I can sent you the recordi-"

"Who else knows?" the general interrupted his offer, surprising him again. Anderson had figured the turian would have more trouble wrapping his head around the entire situation but apparently, that wasn't the case.

Well, either that or he really didn't want to hear it for himself.

The way Anderson saw it, not hearing proof of the state his brother was in, probably allowed him to maintain some sort of distance between him and the situation. While there never had been a formal choice on the matter, Saren had been rather clear on the fact that his older brother was the one around whom their group rallied, their leader so to speak. Since, as with every leader, his group relied on him to keep a clear head, the Spectre could see this being his reason.

Likewise he could also understand that the general simply wanted to spare himself from listening to his brother murdering his comrades in cold blood.

"At the moment, just you and me," the Spectre finally muttered. "I thought about telling Councilor Valern but-"

"Don't," the older Arterius replied almost immediately. Before he was about to ask why, the general went on. "I'll handle Valern," he added, his seemingly exhausted tone finally carrying the first hint of some kind of emotional response to the situation that was increasingly weighing on Anderson. Although he knew that he didn't want to hear the answer, the Spectre decided that he simply had to ask. While it would probably have the opposite effect, he hoped that the certainty of it would somehow help him come to terms with the idea of Saren, whom he could factually consider to be amongst his closest friends, suddenly becoming his enemy due to reasons neither of them had any control of.

"What happened to Saren," he forced himself to begin. "Is it reversible?" he asked, briefly disturbing the uneasy silence that had settled between the two. When the general remained silent for a few more moments, Anderson was ready to accept that he likely wouldn't get the answer he had been hoping for.

"I-," Arterius interrupted himself with a sigh. "I don't know." So much for certainty. "Before Akuze we never really had the option to study the artifacts and when the extend of their danger became apparent-"

"The option to figure it out went out the window."

"Yes," the turian replied again, the sudden drop of quality in the transmission causing his voice to crack up. Unsure of what else to say, Anderson simply chose the smartest course of action he could come up with right now.

Remain quiet.

"You're already on your way to the Citadel?" the general asked after a few more moments.

"Yes."

"I don't think I need to mention that all of this best stay between us until you face the Council?"

"Of course not." Back when he had been told about this entire ordeal, Saren had also been rather clear about why they kept this secret. Since he intended to honor his promise to the turian Spectre, there was no way he'd say a word about it for now.

"Good." Nothing about this was good. "Finish your report to the Council. We'll speak again."

Before he could even think about asking if there was anything else, the feed closed itself, again leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Saren was indoctrinated and once he told the Council what went down on Eden Prime, he'd be branded a rogue Spectre. His actions were the result of something out of control and even if Anderson somehow managed to save his friend from the people who'd be sent after him, there was no guarantee that the thing that was forcing him to do all of this could be reversed.

No.

He wasn't going to deal with those thoughts right now.

"Joker," he called as he unmuted the intercom and opened a direct channel to the bridge. "What's our ETA on the Citadel?" he asked, walking over to the bottle of whiskey, inspecting the fine paper label still wrapped around its neck.

"If we don't run into any trouble during transit," the pilot responded in an upbeat tone that right now only succeeded in making the Spectre sick to his stomach, "Eight hours."

Good. Unless he drank the whole bottle in one go, an idea becoming more attractive the more he thought about it, he could sober up in less than that.

"Wake me in four."

"Will do, Captain."

Tearing off the label and placing the bottle's opening in the small glass sitting on the cabinet next to him, the Spectre did something he hadn't done in a long time.

Drink alone.

Raising the glass to eye level and watching the artificial light of the room brush against it for a moment, Anderson recalled a long past moment far better than the current one. It sure as hell wouldn't fix the problem but it might just help him get a brief moment of otherwise impossible peace of mind.

"To better times," he muttered before downing the glass.


Ten Hours Later, 4. January 2415 AD, HSASV Normandy, Medbay

Damn.

Her head was killing her.

That was the first thought that painfully rang through her otherwise blank mind.

Forcing her eyes open and instantly regretting the decision when the light of the ceiling lamps mercilessly blinded her, Shepard let out a groan, only now realising that she was no longer on Eden Prime.

How had she gotten he-

Of course. The beacon.

While her memory of the event was still foggy at best, she briefly felt a headache-like sensation before remembering the unintelligible set of images that had been forced into her brain moments before blacking out. What in god's name had been their meaning? Just before she could begin trying to unravel the mess of tangled images that was currently occupying her mind, the memory of what had happened moments before the beacon's assault forced its way through.

Alenko.

Sitting up far too fast, the commander barely managed to keep herself from falling back down a moment later by gripping the edge of the bed she had been lying on. Shaking her head in an attempt to combat the dizziness she was only now realising to be there, Shepard was about to get up when a firm hand grabbed her shoulder.

"While I'm glad to see that you're up," the medical officer of the Normandy began, "I have to ask you to take things slowly. You only just woke up."

The commander groaned again before quickly accepting that Chakwas was right.

"How long was I out?" she muttered, looking around the medbay for Alenko. Depending on how close he had been to the beacon when it had exploded, the fact that he didn't seem to be around was either a very good or a very bad thing.

"Fifteen hours."

"Fifteen hours?"

That explained the aching feeling in her back.

"Yes. Fifteen hours," the doctor confirmed again. "You had us worried there, Commander, " she added quickly before bringing up her omni-tool. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a car;" Shepard replied while rolling her neck, the popping sound created by the action causing Chakwas face to display a hint of displeasure. While she couldn't claim to be perfectly comfortable right now, physical discomfort was very low on her list of priorities. Between the geth attack on Eden Prime, the utter failure of her mission to retrieve the beacon and the unknown status of a member of her team, her own pain was of little to no concern. Knowing that she couldn't remove either of the first problem, Emily decided to tackle the one question she could get out of her mind right now.

"Where's Ale-", catching her slip-up, the N7 course corrected immediately. "-the lieutenant?"

"In his quarters," Chakwas replied, drawing a suspicious glance form Shepard. The marine had been nearly as close to the beacon as herself. By all means, he should be lying in the same medbay as her. "Unlike you, Alenko never lost consciousness," the doctor explained as she frowned at something her omni-tool was telling her, "so after much nagging on his part and a lack of test results on mine, I allowed him to leave."

At least some good news.

"Glad to hear it."

"So was he," the doctor muttered again, her eyes still fixed on the omni-tool.

"Something wrong?" Shepard asked after a moment of consideration.

"No, no," Chakwas began as she went through more readings, the look on her face not exactly reassuring the N7. "I'm just trying to make sense of all of this. As far as I can tell, you were in a coma but these readings tell me that you were-"

"Dreaming?" the N7 cut her short. While the concern about Alenko's well-being had taken priority, Emily hadn't forgotten about the images that had flashed in front of her eyes before passing out. Even though it would've been easy and even reasonable for her to pass them up as some kind of strange dream, both her brain and her gut were telling her that these pictures weren't the product of her imagination.

"Yes," the doctor shot her a strange look. "You could say dreaming."

"I know this is going to sound strange, Doctor," she began, slightly worried that she was about to earn herself a trip straight to a psychiatric evaluation for her honesty.

"Go on, Commander."

Not much else she could do now, could she?

"I think the beacon gave me some kind of vision," as the medical officer raised her eyebrow, Shepard began to think that this might not have been such a good idea. "I don't know what it meant but-"

"I'll have to ask you to stop right there, Commander," a somewhat familiar voice called as the door of the medbay opened. As soon as the Spectre walked in, Chakwas turned towards him, likely intending to challenge his order. After all, if she was a doctor and one of her patients would start talking about a destroyed piece of alien technology giving her some kind of vision, she too would like to hear the whole story. "I'm sorry Doctor," Anderson began, "but any intel the beacon may have passed on to the commander will be strictly classified until further review." She wasn't certain what was weirder, the fact that the Spectre had apparently been listening in on their conversation, the fact that he looked like he had aged ten years in the last ten hours or the fact that he actually believed what she had been about to explain to Chakwas.

"The commander is my patient, Captain. If she is experiencing lucid dreaming as the result of being exposed to an alien artifact-"

"Then she will be able to tell you all about it once I say so," the Spectre cut her off rather rudely, an action that, as far as she was able to tell from her brief impression of the man, was very unusual for him. "Do you think you're ready to be debriefed, Commander?" the former N7 asked as he turned away from the doctor. Even though he hid it good enough, Shepard could tell that there was an urgency to his tone and, even at the risk of aggravating the person responsible for her health by leaving her hanging, decided that the best thing she could do right now was to figure out just what kind of consequences the beacon's destruction would carry with it. Additionally to that, the fact that Anderson seemed to have no doubt that the beacon could've passed on some kind of vision to her, also influenced her decision.

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. There's somebody who wants to talk to you in the comm-room," Anderson nodded, locking eyes with Chakwas in the process. "For what's worth it, I'm sorry about this breach of procedure, Doctor."

"I'm sure you are." If she needed another reason to take her leave from the medbay, she had just found it. To say Chakwas was displeased with Anderson effectively cutting her out would've been an understatement.

"I'll be right behind you, Commander," the Spectre said, pointing his hand out of the medbay and into the general direction of the elevator. Pushing herself of the bed and quickly pulling on the pair of boots placed next to it, the N7 got out of the increasingly more hostile medical bay as soon as her aching body allowed her to, taking very clear note of the fact that Anderson was not right behind her and in addition to that also picking up on the faint smell of alcohol coming from the man.

Not much she could do about either of that right now.

As the commander made her way up the elevator and into the comm-room, which promptly darkened once it registered her entry, she thought about the set of images again, provoking another headache-like pain in the process. Shaking her head clear just as bluish light flooded the room thanks to a projection assembling itself in front of her, Emily put up a straight face and waited for the process to finish, expecting to come face to face with top-brass any moment now. But instead of looking at some politician, her own superiors who had sent her on this mission or some high ranking admiral she was already familiar with, she found herself looking at a person she simply couldn't place. Instead of wearing a uniform, the man in front of her was simply clad in a plain black suit and instead of standing in front of her and waiting for her to snap to attention, he calmly set in a chair with his legs crossed and a cigarette in his mouth.

"Commander Shepard," the man spoke after exhaling a small cloud of smoke, his voice surprisingly soft considering his evident habit. "I don't think we've had the pleasure yet," he added as he dipped the cigarette into what she suspected to be an ashtray just out of sight. "I had hoped to meet you under more fortunate circumstances." Who was this guy? "But as things are, the destruction of the beacon had to accelerate this process," wait, could he have something to do with the unknown soldiers they had found at the original dig site? "In both our interests, I'll cut right to the chase and save us both the time and effort of dancing around the actual problem."

"Before you do that, I'd like to know who exactly I'm talking to," she countered not a moment later, folding her arms. If this had been some kind of officer or at least somebody who's base of authority she understood, she would not have spoken up but as things were, the only thing she knew about the stranger in front of her was that he somehow knew Anderson.

"My name's not important, Commander," the man said as Shepard took notice of the strange shape of his eyes. Maybe a glitch of the projector? She shut the thought down before it could go any further. This wasn't a priority right now.

"Then why not give it to me?" she countered, not intending to back down. There was a number of things Shepard disliked and for the last six months, this particular kind of secrecy had climbed very high on that list. Watching as the man's mouth flicked into a smirk, she already prepared herself for some kind of witty comeback.

"In the interest of time, Director Harper will have to do," the man said, doing the polar opposite of what she had expected, in turn explaining the true reasoning behind his smirk. As he rose from his chair and walked towards her, at least in the sense of how it was physically possible for a projection from god knew where to walk towards her, the smirk disappeared. "Originally, I only intended to talk to you about the dead operatives you found," Harper went on as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his suit, likely intentionally answering one of the questions that had been on her mind ever since arriving at the dig site, "but from what I understand, you believe that the beacon passed some kind of message onto you."

Anderson sure had been quick to tell him about that.

"Yes. I think it gave me some kind of," she paused for a moment, trying to find the right kind of answer this time around but finally deciding to stick to her earlier description, "vision." There simply was no other way for her to describe what exactly she had seen. While it would've been easy to pass it up as some kind of hallucination produced by her injury, she had been down that road before. This time had been way different. "I know it sounds strange but-"

"I believe you," Harper cut her off as he pulled a small box from his pocket. "When we first found the beacon, one of our experts theorized that it might be able to transfer information, she just couldn't tell us how we could trigger the process," he went on before opening the metal object and pulling another cigarette from it. "It would seem that you found a way around whatever security measure prevented her from previously accessing it after all. Albeit at the cost of the actual beacon of course," Considering the fact that they were talking about a working piece of prothean technology, the director was surprisingly okay with losing it. "If the beacon sent a message to you right before its destruction, whatever information was passed onto you just became more than invaluable," Harper finished as he pulled a small tablet from beyond the projector's range, typing on it for a few seconds before again discarding it. "We might've lost the beacon but if we're lucky, we didn't lose it's content."

"What message?"

"You're on your way to the Citadel right now," Harper replied, effectively ignoring her question but filling her in on what the Normandy had been up to while she had been out cold in the process. "After the Council has debriefed you, Anderson will have further instructions for you." When she thought he was done and it was her turn to ask the questions, Harper went on. "This should help you pass the time," he said as her omni-tool buzzed. Instinctively opening the message, she wasn't entirely sure what the hexagon she was looking at was supposed to mean. "We'll talk again soon, Commander."

Before she even got the chance to tell him to wait and give her some answers, the projection cut out, leaving her alone in the dark comm-room, only a dozen questions around to keep her company.

Just great.


5. January 2415 AD, Cronos Station

"Is this about Eden Prime, Sir?" the blonde man asked immediately after the door had closed behind him with a hiss.

"I'm afraid not," Rei replied from beyond his desk before looking up from his terminal. "Please, take a seat."

Damn.

Even if the ship at the helm of the geth raid was being passed off as some kind of highly sophisticated dreadnought, he, just like the rest of Section 13 ever since Akuze, knew the real story and he, just like a number of his colleagues, had been hoping to get a shot at these particular guys.

"Ever heard of Captain Zhi? Commander Peterson? Colonel Petrovsky?" the director began to ask after Redford had sat down, drawing a mere shrug from him. He couldn't claim to know any of these people, at least not by name. "No? Well, what about Rear Admiral Kohaku?" Contrary to the others, that name immediately rang a bell. Following the armistice with the Batarian Hegemony, an action he knew to have been rooted in the fear of depleting the galaxy's military resources shortly before the Harbinger's attack, Kohaku, back then still the commander of the 8th Fleet, had been one of the treaty's most outspoken opponents within the HSA's military. Not only had he demanded that the Council finish the war the batarians had started, he had also objected to the court martial of several ranking HSA officers, who, due to working hand in hand with the IFS cells that had joined in the defense of several planets, had been charged with both insubordination and treason, the latter action drawing the attention of HSAIS.

"I do know Kohaku," he said with a nod.

"Figured you would."

"Did he-" Reford was about to ask whether or not Kohaku had finally done what HSAIS had been suspecting him off for quite a few months by now, ditch the HSA and link up with whatever IFS cell it was that was leading the charge on the latest spike in separatist activity.

"Kohaku's dead," Rei cut him off. "Murdered onboard of his flagship while refueling over Elysium," the director went on. "His death marks the latest incident regarding decorated officers that served during the Blitz disappearing or turning up dead."

"Shit," he frowned, already suspecting where this conversation would go. "Any particular reason why we're only hearing this now? Colonels and Captains aren't exactly small numbers."

"Because until Kohaku, the superiors of the victims passed the deaths and disappearances off to military police as regular crimes," the director explained before recognizing Redford's expression, likely aware of what exactly the specialist was thinking. After the asian man ran a hand through his greying hair, he sighed and went on. "Don't worry, we're already looking into those officers as well."

"I don't think that'll be necessary," Redford replied with another shrug. "We both know where this road goes, we've been down it before." As if the whole Eden Prime mess wasn't enough. With everything going on, the last thing they needed was a bunch of separatist sleepers murdering, or worse, recruiting HSA officers.

"We still need to check," the older man figured. "See how deep this thing runs, how many other cases we missed." the director sighed as he drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him. "My guess is, they figured Kohaku would be a save choice."

"Seems likely," Redford added. "When negotiations ended, the guy was just about ready to go to Khar'shan himself. Rumor has it he didn't take kindly to being told to stand down."

"Frustrated with his superiors, hates the HSA's policies," the director began. "Textbook IFS deserter material, really."

"Is that your assessment or does it say that in his file?"

"Both."

"Seeing how this turned out," Redford sighed. "Kohaku was a lot more loyal than internal affairs gave him credit for. They contact him, he tells them to go to hell and instead of recruiting him, they cross him off to keep their secret."

"That's probably how it went down," the director nodded.

They both knew what came next.

"When am I leaving, Sir?"

"Right now. Already got your briefing right here," the man said as he reached into his pocket and slid a small datadrive across the desk. "Go to Elysium and start with Kokaku. See if you can figure out who killed him and go from there."

"What if I find the guy?"

"Optimally? You bring him in for questioning," the director said before his eyes narrowed. "If that's not an option," he began, only for Redford to save him the trouble.

"I ice him, copy that," he finished. "Can I assume the same goes for any of the disappeared officers that turn out to be turncoats?"

"Yes, you can."

"Good. Anything else I should know?" Redford asked as he looked at the small black device before stuffing it into the pockets of his dress uniform.

"All-in on this one, Lal Qila. The last time they did something like this, they threw us into a civil war. This isn't happening. Not again and not on our watch."

"Damn right it isn't."


Codex: The Krogan Rebellions 700 CE (Part of Entry Series 'The Krogan Rebellions')

After achieving a victory in the Rachni Wars through the help of the krogan, who after being uplifted by the Salarian Union proved crucial in carrying the fight to the rachni on their toxic homeworlds, the Citadel Council entered an era of peace and prosperity, both the memory of the last war's devastation and its new krogan peacekeepers keeping the galaxy in line in spite of the poor shape in which the Council left the war. Eager to quell critics and NGO organisations pointing out the massive casualties conscription had causesd within the ranks of the Asari Republics and the Salarian Union militaries, the two members of the council began a rapid process of disarming large portions of its military in favour of building up the krogan one, passing over equipment, installations, ships and at times entire planets to the recently uplifted species, which, thanks to a better quality of life, new technologies and the lack on an enemy to fight, experienced a population boom of unprecedented scale, quickly filling the ranks of the then newly founded Krogan Peacekeeping Corps. Now, under the watchful eyes of the vast krogan armies, the galaxy began to rebuild.

However as history would proof, this peace shouldn't last.

As decades passed and the members and associates of the Council continued to fix the damage done by the rachni, concerned voices of the scientific community began to speak up against the optimistic tone of their diplomatic counterparts. Instead of colouring the optimistic picture of granting the krogan a seat on the Council for their role in defeating the rachni, they all repeated the same warning over and over again.

In the long run, krogan population growth and the expansion it brought would not be sustainable and, in accordance to their nature and culture, would lead the krogan to spiral out of control. Faced with the ethical and political dilemma of telling the krogan species to pull the breaks on its golden age, the Council reigning from from 691 CE to 700 CE at first decided not to act and, in spite of the warning signs already visible on the horizon, dismiss the krogan critics as a minor fringe group, an approach that became impossible to maintain when the krogan began to annex Council worlds.

In what many call the most decisive day of galactic history, the Citadel Council summoned one of the krogan's most prestigious leaders, Overlord Kredak, who had previously distinguished himself through his service in the Rachni Wars, and demanded that he stop his species most recent annexation of Lusia, a prosperous asari colony.

While sources disagree on how exactly the meeting transpired, its result echo throughout the galaxy to this very day.

After being ordered to cease hostilities and return the colonies back to their former owners, the Kredak leashed out and attacked the two councilors, daring them to try and take back the planet by themselves before being eliminated by C-SEC forces. With Kredak, the diplomatic approach died as well, opening the gates for war once again.


A/N: Soo.. I'm late. Way late actually. This is the longest time it ever took me to update the story...

BUT

There's an actual reason for it.

Life just kind of caught up to me.

I don't want to bore you with the details an all that jazz but as things are, I was and will probably continue to be really, really swamped. Long story short, police academy is a shitload of work, especially if you do it in a town some 350 kilometers away from home. Not really having a home, or reliable internet (thank my cellphone provider I can even update this, hotspots are a sweet invention) in said town at the moment doesn't help either.

So yeah...

What else is new?

Biggest change first.

We now have chapter titles, something you can in big parts thank for, Admiral Sakai who was more than just helpful in coming up with most of these.

So, now we talk chapter... for something that took me a month, not all that much actually happened. Sure, we're setting up where things will go from here on out and the codex kind of hints at the whole 'history repeats itself' trope I already had going with the krogan and turians before.. but other than that? yeah...

Saren being indoctrinated is now something two people know. Guess that'S kind of a big deal.

As I said. A lot of setup, basically..

So, getting back to the whole life stuff. While I can't make any predictions, I'll just have to wait and see how things become once I actually permanently move to this town (traveling back home every weekend at the moment) ... I think it's safe to say Semper Vigilo's updating pace will probably change. How badly? IDK. I might get a lot of writing done while sitting in the train every friday and sunday but as things are, I just got a lot of other stuff to do on the sidelines.

Either way.

I'm not dead.

The story is not dead.

Life just finally caught up with me. Which from my point of view, isn't such a bad thing.

For the record, we'Re at 413 reviews, 630 favorites and 738 follows.

Review and let me know what you think.

See you around next time.